Cold ionospheric ions in the magnetosphere
Space Physics
2021-12-15 v1
Abstract
Cold (eV) ions of ionospheric origin are a major source of magnetospheric plasma. These ions dominate the number density for most of the volume of the magnetosphere, most of the time. This affects large-scale physics, including plasma temperature and pressure (and thus instability thresholds) and the Alfv\'en velocity (and thus energy transport with waves and the magnetic reconnection rate). This also affects small-scale kinetic plasma physics, including wave generation and the Hall physics of reconnection. Ions escaping from the ionosphere also represent a significant fraction of the mass outflow from planet Earth.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2112.07429,
title = {Cold ionospheric ions in the magnetosphere},
author = {M. André and S. Toledo-Redondo and A. W. Yau},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.07429},
year = {2021}
}